1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a commercial vehicle, especially a truck, with an internal combustion engine and a heat recovery system, the medium-containing circuit of which includes at least one pump, an evaporator, an expander and a condenser.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the case of commercial vehicles, especially trucks, the use of ever more powerful internal combustion engines has caused increasing problems with proper cooling. Cooling has become very difficult, because the required radiators must have very large volumes, which are by now almost too large to be installed in the vehicle. Various proposals have already been offered for avoiding such large radiators, and all of them are based on the idea of using the cooling water to carry away the heat of the engine in a manner different from that of conventional cooling. A known method of this type involves the recovery of heat from the heat sources of the engine, where the heat is extracted from the heat sources such as the cooling water or hot engine assemblies and then put to some useful purpose. At least one pump, an evaporator, an expander, and a condenser are provided in the associated circuit through which the medium flows. All these additional units take up a certain amount of space in the vehicle.